Today we are talking all about using a digital business to fuel physical dreams with Shannon Matson. Shannon Matson is an experienced marketing and advertising professional and the CEO of The Social Bungalow and Bungalow Coffee Co. She helps people take the next step to structure and market their businesses for exceptional growth.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE NOW:

Listen & subscribe on your favorite platform: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Amazon

Meet Shannon Matson

Shannon’s journey began in the corporate world where she held titles such as V.P. of Marketing for a global publishing company and National Director of Sales & Marketing for a fitness franchise.

These varying industries and array of accreditations – from pursuing continued education credits in copywriting, utilized to write weekly articles for Forbes and Entrepreneur.com, to becoming Google Adwords certified – speak to her insatiable hunger for driving traffic and conversions to remarkable brands.

These roles brought her to opportunities with L’Oreal, Access Hollywood and The Ellen Degeneres Show, with marketing access to Kendra Wilkinson, Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez.

Now, she’s the CEO and Founder of The Social Bungalow, an education + media company that helps entrepreneurs structure ingenious online businesses for exceptional growth.

What Steps Did You Take In Your Online Business To Financially Prepare For Building A Brick + Mortar Business?

Shannon says that common advice in the online space will tell you that your profit is, in its most basic form, revenue minus expenses. She then noted that there is a lot of talk around how digital business creates soooo much profit because compared to Brick + Mortar, you have less expenses (no rent, smaller team, etc.).

However, Shannon’s approach to this theory is different. She broke her thoughts up into 3 steps:

Step 1 – Evaluate Your Current Business

Shannon suggests starting with breaking down your revenue. This starts with determining what kind of business you are (ex. service provider, DWY, DIY courses, memberships, digital products, etc.) and then breaking up how much you are spending on your operations: your fulfillment/labor, your paid marketing + organic marketing. From here, you can determine what percentage you would like to dedicate to each sector.

Once you set these percentages, she continues, then you can gauge where you might be allocating too much money.

Step 2 – Establish Your “Cash In The Bank”

Second, Shannon suggests deciding whether you would like 60, 90, or 120 days of a safety net of savings. Once you have determined that, take the leftover revenue and divide that into the number of days you would like to save for.

On this point she stresses the importance of building this before you ever invest in something outside of it.

Step 3 – Determine What You Are Comfortable Investing

She says that, at this point, it is now time to take those numbers and see what you are comfortable investing into a Brick + Mortar.

What Are Ways You Personally Evaluate How To Spend/Invest Your Profit?

Shannon stated that because both of her businesses have developed to a point where they are consistently profitable with inventory and teams, she now looks at projecting year over year plans and focusing on where they want to grow in the future.

From there — It’s all about finding what you want financially and impact wise and then reverse engineering those desires. Once these goals are set, the next step is investing in a timely manner in a way that makes sense for you.

She continues by saying that after you have this financial roadmap in place, you now need to figure out the action items that need to be completed in order to achieve these goals.

After these action items have been planned out, it is time to break down the steps necessary to making these action items work operationally.

She finishes by saying that you can then reverse engineer your plans to find the finances to fund these goals and operations. She states that these goals are 2 fold — 1 part financial and 1 part impact. It’s about finding a balance.

How did you get started with Bungalow Coffee?

Shannon says her story started when there was a coffee shop going out of business and they were doing an asset sale. There is where they were able to make their start!

From her experience, she says you have 2 options when buying Brick + Mortar:

Option #1: Buy New

Pro — Everything is new, you have warranties, etc.

Con — Full price price point.

Option #2: Buy From Someone

Pro — Decreased price and opportunity to negotiate due to depreciation. Shannon says that through the asset sale and negotiation, she was able to get them down by $50,000. They were also able to infuse training from their manager to know how the appliances worked.

Following this, they also wanted to assume the coffee shop’s lease. After going through an extensive process, they were able to negotiate getting months off their rent since they needed time for construction before opening.

Of this experience she says, “A lot of times people feel negotiation is going to be negative and it’s going to be so firm and you’re going to piss people off or burn bridges. And really, it can be just an open conversation about ‘Hey, I respect that. I hear you. But this doesn’t make sense for us and here’s our counter.’ And they say ‘Alright’. There’s so much that people are open to if you just ask.”

What Were Some Of The Differences You Discovered Throughout This Process Between Running An Online Business Versus A Brick + Mortar? And How Did You Navigate Learning About All Of These New Things?

Shannon starts by saying, at their core, online businesses and Brick + Mortar businesses are soooo different. Although the same principles of business ownership, leadership, and making a business profitable are the same brass tacks, the application of it all is completely different.

She gives the personal example that because of where the coffee shop is located, people coming to Bungalow Coffee made it more of an event rather than a part of their everyday routine. In the beginning, the obvious solution to this issue seemed to be increasing ticket prices by rolling out a robust food menu.

Shannon states that the biggest difference between digital business and Brick + Mortar businesses is that in the online space, you can sell a super high ticket premium package and the revenue from that can get you through a longer period of time. Then you are able to have less team members because your packages are bigger.

But with Brick + Mortar, it’s a different experience. With Brick + Mortar, it’s simpler to make people happy. And the revenue you get in Brick + Mortar is constantly funneling into other areas almost immediately.

She finishes by stating that the marketing approach is really the only thing that is similar.

So many of the same principles of outreach, relationship building, follower growth, content creation, etc. are the same at the core but are wildly different in application.

What Are Some Things People Should Know Or Do Before Opening a Brick + Mortar Business?

Shannon starts by stating that, in general, there are many differences between digital business and Brick + Mortar business.

She continues, with Brick + Mortar in general there are more certifications and permits required. There is also a large learning curve accompanying the shift from virtual to Brick + Mortar.

She then cautions to not over prepare or over consume because there is SO much information. It is easy to get overwhelmed and overloaded. Just know that you will figure it out once you are in it!

She also gives more suggestions such as spending time looking at the traffic patterns of the area, visiting the businesses around your space, and getting to know the people in the area.

She finishes by stating if it’s your 2nd business, really take a strong look at your relationships around you. Make sure that you have already set yourself up with date nights with your significant other or set routines with family. If you don’t, you will lose hobbies, interests, and friends. She emphasizes the need to be intentional with your relationships by creating a schedule/routine with the people around you.

If you’re ready to start using a digital business to fuel physical dreams, connect with Shannon Matson by checking out the links below!